


body cradled in the cage of my teeth

by nykteris



Series: bullets beneath our skin [2]
Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, F/F, they aren't graphic (not really) but there's quite a few fights spread out through out the story, warnings for the fight scenes and whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-11 04:45:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8954164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nykteris/pseuds/nykteris
Summary: We’re supposed to have a resolute acceptance of death, Mina tells herself, but aren’t we just human, too?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [softshocks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/softshocks/gifts).



> **[EDIT ; 07/17/2017]**. i've added some stuff here and there, as well as reformatted the work a little for #aesthetic.
> 
> **WARNING(S)** : mentions of blood, guns (and gunshot wounds), and is generally a little more (or maybe relatively 'a lot' more) bloody than part 1
> 
> ☆☆☆
> 
> ideally i should have had this done by nikki's birthday (the 20th) but the previous fic took longer to write than i'd originally planned, so clearly my goal wasn't _realistically_ possible.
> 
> this is a tie-in to [the first fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8859031) in the series, set quite some time (read: monthssss) after it. there are a lot of references here to the first fic so it's best if you read that before this.
> 
> thank you to emilia as well for helping me get my thinking cap on again! i really was stuck but you really helped me out and got me writing this like there was no tomorrow ♡
> 
> title credit: ([x](http://sleepwalking.nu/post/54961225034/your-name-is-safe-in-my-mouth-your-heart-too))

 

 

 

 

 

**( part two )**

**body cradled in the cage of my teeth**

 

 

 

 

 

“Did you hear the news?” Sana asks, switching swiftly to Japanese. She offers smiles to the flight attendants that pass by them.

Mina turns her head just the slightest. She follows in Sana’s suit and speaks in Japanese. “The news about?”

“Choi Jungsik,” Momo chimes in. She rips open a bag of chips and shoves a few pieces in her mouth. “An assassination attempt gone wrong about a month ago.”

Mina’s heart weighs a ton in her chest. She’s heard of many of those failed assassinations and normally they didn’t end well for either party. “What happened?”

“They got caught,” Sana explains. “I’m guessing they were snitched on, or maybe they just didn’t execute it too well. Either way, they caught the ones sent to assassinate him and it’s gonna be messy because they aren’t just _any_ assholes who want to kill another asshole — it’s one of the sects that branched out from the _fida’i_ , or at least the Korean sect of it. They don't play nice, to say the least.”

“Pretty hardcore,” Momo adds. She offers Mina some chips but the other girl turns down the offer. “I heard their current grandmaster might as well be a warlord or something.”

Mina nods to herself and mumbles, “Yoon Bora. I’ve heard of her.” In fact, she’s heard a lot about Yoon Bora and her thousands strong group of assassins. Sana was right when she said they are an unforgiving lot. They’re also said to be unrelenting and ruthless.

_Were they afraid?_ Mina wonders, thinking about the ones caught. She wonders what had gone through their heads when they got caught. She knows they had no loved ones and they are known to be fearless, the types to laugh at your face if you threatened them with death. How could they fear death when there was nothing (no one) waiting for them to come back? _We’re supposed to have a resolute acceptance of death_ , Mina tells herself, _but aren’t we just human, too?_

It’s a dangerous thought to entertain. Their master had warned them against such thoughts, but she’s been thinking about this a lot lately.

Still, she wonders what the captives must have been thinking. She wonders if any of them had a lover and was worried they would never be together again. She thinks it’s both foolish and brave of them if they allowed themselves the luxury of love.

“One thing’s for sure,” Sana says. “Heads will roll.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The homestay is anything but fancy. It’s _decent_ , at most, but nothing fancy. Quite simple, actually, but Mina likes it nonetheless.

Sana and Momo won’t stay with her but they’ll be nearby, five minutes away at least. It’s better this way, strategically — Sana and Momo would be far enough that no one (if anyone would be watching them) would figure out they know each other but they’re also near enough that they can rush to each other’s aid should anything bad happen.

Mina examines her room. It’s quite spartan, with little to no frills and just one bed (big enough for just her), an armchair and a desk. The cabinet is of decent size, appropriate enough for the amount of clothes she’d brought — which honestly wasn’t much. She goes straight to unpacking her things and fixing up the room, moving the armchair and desk and setting up her equipment. Her equipment includes listening and recording devices, a laptop and other gadgets she didn’t really think she would need.

The weapons she handles more delicately, as they had always been taught to do; she favors her knives the best, seeing as they required the most grace to handle, but she has a different kind of respect for the guns she’d been given. She didn’t sneak them into the airport, of course; they were picked up by a trusted contact and were given the firearms inside the car. Mina lays them out now on the desk in front of her. It’s a ritual of Mina’s to somewhat ‘bless’ her weapons, to offer a prayer to the gods for her success through said weapons.

When she finishes her little rituals, she heads straight to the bathroom and takes a shower. There, her mind starts to wander.

The entire mission isn’t supposed to take longer than two months (at the very least) to accomplish. They have all the intel and information they need so it’s all down to a matter of execution. This isn’t Mina’s first time on the field, but this is certainly the biggest challenge she’s been given. Having Sana and Momo, who are like sisters to her, by her side ease her mind of any worries. The three of them work like a very well-oiled machine and so far nothing has ever gone wrong as long as the three of them were together. They are the closest thing she has to family.

Their target is a man named Park Noshik. He’s one of the highest ranking generals in South Korea as of the moment — a man with expensive tastes, a reputation and, from what Mina knows, could never keep it in his pants. It’s said he has at least four mistresses (at this point Mina is anything but surprised) but that’s not important information. How many women he had didn’t matter, but what matters is the fact that he works for Choi Jungsik. A problem, obviously; Park is just human after all and like any other person he was easily swayed by all the money and power Choi had offered him. He provides Choi with all the manpower that he needs, from personal security to croneys. In all honesty, Mina thinks Park is just Choi’s bitch, the muscle Choi flexed and the person he turned to when he needed anyone who went against him taken care of. She thinks of the assassins caught and wonders if they were left to Park’s care.

Mina steps out the shower and wraps the towel around her torso. She examines herself in the mirror for a few seconds before she steps out of the bathroom, throws on her sleeping clothes and goes to bed. She stares up at the ceiling, bare as any other ceiling can be, before she moves to get her music player and headphones. She plays a ballet piece, humming along to the tune.

She imagines pirouettes, imagines leaping through the air, imagines the strong lines her body can make, imagines the precision in each and every muscle. She imagines, imagines, imagines. Then, she drifts off to sleep.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They run over the plan a number of times, going through the usual reconnaissance and dry runs. All in all, it takes them about three and a half weeks to get everything down to pat, get everything they need ready and they’re ready to go.

Mina goes through the plan in her head more than a hundred times throughout the day before D-Day until she’s sure she can recite each and every detail in her sleep, no mistakes or stuttering. It’s a simple enough plan, not too frilly or dramatic, and in simple terms it would be an ambush. They’ve had him under surveillance the entire time they prepared and Mina can say that Park is a man of routine — _strict_ routine, even, as expected of a military man. There’s a road he passes by everyday on his way to his headquarters, always between six to seven in the morning, and all cars had to slow down at the junction because of a hairpin curve. Ideally it should give them enough time to finish the job, however messy it might get. They would follow Park’s car on their motorcycles and once the car slows down they would pummel it with bullets and send Park back to his maker.

Mina manages to get a few hours of sleep before she gets up early the next morning and prepares everything she needs. She sneaks out while it’s still dark, her clothes making her almost blend into the dark of the early morning, and she meets up with Momo and Sana at the ‘safe house’ (which, in reality, is just a storage space they managed to rent out from a stubborn middle aged man, though not without roughing him out a little) and they make a quick run through of their plans again.

Momo hands Mina and Sana each an earpiece and says, “Okay, I’ve calibrated them already so they shouldn’t mess around like they did last time.”

“Jesus,” Sana scoffs. “You’d think with the millions of dollars we get paid to do this shit they could at least give us earpieces that don’t haywire all of a sudden. _Clearly_ that wasn’t the case.”

“Got your call names down?” Momo asks them as she puts in her earpiece.

“ _Namanari_ ,” Sana says, adjusting the gun slung across her shoulder.

Momo starts her motorcycle. “ _Deigan_.”

Mina adjust the earpiece and presses the button to turn it on. When she hears the tiny beep signaling she’s good to go, she says, “ _Hannya_.”

Sana lifts up the steel door of the storage space and Momo is the first to leave, followed by Sana. Mina mumbles a quick and quiet prayer under her breath before she revs the engine of her motorcycle and follows Sana and Momo.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Mina waits by the side of a road, hidden enough by the shadows of the trees. She looks down at her watch briefly before her eyes flicker back to the road. The car she’s waiting for is a matte black Suburban. She’s monitored the car enough to know which one she’s looking for.

She starts to hum to a Prokofiev tune to keep her mind sharp and focused. It would bore any other regular person to death having to wait out like this so early in the morning. Mina hums to different tunes her mind can come up with to help keep herself awake.

It’s ten minutes later when she finally spot’s Park’s Suburban. “Target’s just arrived,” she mumbles into the communication line. She slowly emerges from the shadows of the trees and tails the Suburban at a safe distance, not too close that they would suspect anything and not too far that she would lose sight of him. “Estimated five to ten minutes to your checkpoint.”

“Copy that,” Momo replies. Her voice is lighter when she jests, “We should really go get a big breakfast after this.”

Mina chuckles to herself and Sana joins in, “We’re about to kill a man and you just think of _breakfast_.”

Momo whines. “We got up at the ass crack of dawn and I didn’t even get to eat anything!”

“Oh, shush already, you big baby,” Sana replies, but she cracks up.

Less than ten minutes later, Mina sees Momo emerge from her own checkpoint, flanking the Suburban at the left. A trucker honks at Momo, angry that she cut in front of him from out of nowhere, but she just lift her middle finger up at him. Mina laughs to herself.

“ _Namanari_ ,” Mina says, “get ready. Estimated time of three minutes ‘til your checkpoint.”

“Roger that,” Sana replies in her usual upbeat manner. Sana has always been the most chipper of the three of them but nothing excited her more than the thrill of a mission.

Mina and Momo are well practiced in these chases and whereas before the breakneck speeds they’d gun would leave Mina shaking, now they exhilarate her. She feels the adrenaline finally starting to kick in, feels it with the pounding of her heart against her chest and the rush of blood to her head. She looks over to Momo and then to the Suburban, then says, “ _Deigan_ , you’re starting to edge too close to the car. Move back a bit before they start noticing things.”

Momo complies right away, setting some distance between her and the car. Mina throws a small nod towards her direction and she replies back with a thumbs up.

Just then, Sana banks to the right side of the Suburban. Mina can already imagine the excitement rushing through Sana’s veins and she knows that if Sana wasn’t on a motorcycle right now she would be doing a little dance.

“You guys ready?” Mina asks them. Momo hums in response while Sana giggles excitedly.

All the cars in front of them start to slow down at the hairpin curve, including Park’s Suburban. Mina can hear the pounding of her heart and the pulse of her blood. The Suburban starts to slow down some more as it enters the curve and then — “Rock and roll,” Momo says through their ear pieces. Something snaps in the back of Mina’s mind and the switch has been turned on. She’s not just Myoui Mina now, she’s a stone cold killer. Efficient, ruthless, and with a job to do.

It feels like she’s watching it all in slow motion. Sana makes a very sharp turn, so sharp even a pro-biker would get a heart attack, stopping right in front of the Suburban as she throws an explosive (military grade and the first of its kind in Japan, available only to them and the special forces) under the car. Mina watches it tip over to the side and she feels the reverberations of the explosion rather than hear it as she pulls out her own guns and starts shooting mercilessly at the side windows. Momo does the same on the other side as well as Sana.

Everyone around them falls into a frenzy, with cars bumping into each other and people actually jumping out of their cars and running away.

The smoke starts to clear but they don’t stop firing. Impatient now, Sana breaks the window by jabbing the butt of her rifle down on it three times before she hastily pulls the door open. What meets them is not what they’d expected — instead of a cowering Park Noshik, they’re greeted with gunfire. The three of them jump back immediately as their attackers jump out the tipped over Suburban, apparently having waited it out before their opportunity to strike back presented itself. Everything that happens after is a blur to Mina — a blur of bullets and fists and the glint of knives in the sun.

It’s a set-up. A motherfucking _counter_ -ambush.

For the first time in her life, Mina feels frustrated and flustered. _It wasn’t supposed to go like this_ , her mind keeps repeating. _We had a plan and we weren’t supposed to fail or be wrong!_ Life, as Mina knows begrudgingly accepts, is full of surprises and it has one in store just for her: it comes in the form of a bullet ripping through her shoulder and another through her stomach, point blank. Her vision gets blurry for a few seconds, her mind light as a feather, before she manages to pull it together long enough to put a bullet through her assailant’s head, right between his brows. Deadshot.

Mina clutches her side, right where the blood is gushing out. She feels Sana grab her by the shoulders and she barely makes out what Sana says, only hearing “ _Mina, we have to go!_ ” She wills her legs to move as she stumbles her way back to her motorcycle, a bullet whizzing right past her ear, close enough to a head shot. She fires back and even with her steadily decreasing focus she still hits the shooter right in the chest. He topples backwards and she starts the engine, heading to...well, she really didn’t know where she was headed to but anywhere but here is ideal.

Her mind is hazy but she can still comprehend what Momo and Sana are saying through her earpiece, a mix of curses and panicked rambling and they agree to meet up at the safe house. For now, they’d have to split up.

“ _Hannya_ ,” Sana says, her voice bleary and unclear in Mina’s ear, “do you read me?”

Mina narrowly escapes running right into the side of a sedan. She feels her mouth move, knows she’s said something, but her mind can’t register any of it when it’s busy trying to keep her afloat enough to stay alive on the road.

“ _Hannya_! Do you read me?”

Mina knows she replies _Yes_ but her whole world come tumbling and crashing down and her body finally gives up and gives in. Then, her world falls into darkness.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The room smells like jasmines.

Mina forces her eyes open, however difficult it may be, and she finds herself staring up at a blank ceiling. She wonders if maybe she’s somehow found a way back to her homestay, but her room didn’t smell of jasmines and the ceiling of her room is plain white, not dark blue. Her bed also isn’t as soft as this one.

She tries to get up even though white hot pain shoots through her veins, making her plop back down on bed with a loud groan. Her breathing comes in sharp and heavy and all she can do is stare up at the ceiling. She clutches the side where she’d been shot and her shoulder burns too. Mina is not new to being shot at but it still hurts like a bitch. So she closes her eyes and focuses on her breathing instead, inhaling and exhaling to a steady rhythm until it steadies.

Mina’s eyes flutter open when she hears the shuffling of footsteps on the floor. Instinctively, she jolts up (it’s like having fire spread throughout her insides) and reaches for her side, expecting to find a knife or a gun — _anything_ — but she’s met with nothing of the kind. The girl who’d entered the room jumps back in surprise and throws her hands up. “Hey now,” she says, voice shaky, “easy tiger. I just came to check on you.”

“Where am I and who are you?” Mina asks right away, voice sharper than the edge of a sword. Her eyes survey the room very quickly for any exit points or things she could possibly use as a weapon. Just in case.

The girl gulps. “I-I’m Yoo Jeongyeon and you’re at, uh, my place.”

Mina narrows her eyes at this Jeongyeon girl. She looks harmless enough but you could never judge a book by its cover. “And _why_ am I here? How did I get here and how did you find me?”

“I saw your motorcycle crash into the side of the road,” Jeongyeon answers. She sounds a lot less nervous now but she still looks jittery. “I was driving some distance behind you and I thought you must have just been one of those drunk motorists because of how wobbly you were going. I turned on the police light and thought you’d stop but I saw you crash your motorcycle instead.”

_She’s certainly a talker_ , Mina notes. It’s strangely...endearing. Mina moves closer to the edge of the bed just so she can spring into action much faster if ever Jeongyeon proves to be a hostile. “You’re a cop?”

“Police officer, yeah.”

“And you thought it would be a good idea to just bring me back here instead of to a hospital.”

Jeongyeon purses her lips. “You crashing your motorcycle because you were drunk is a case for the police department. But you had gunshot wounds. This is clearly something a little more _complicated_.”

“I still don’t see why you would choose to tend to me instead of turning me over,” Mina presses. “Are you working for someone? What’s in it for you?”

Jeongyeon shakes her head vehemently. “There’s nothing in it for me, I promise! It’s just...I figured it would be a little messy if I brought you in there to the ER. That would lead to an investigation and lots of stones being turned over.”

Mina gets up this time, albeit with some difficulty. Her side and shoulder still burn. “And you think that’s going to make me trust you?”

“Well, it’s not that I expect you to trust me,” Jeongyeon replies very carefully, “but I _do_ want to help you. That’s why I brought you here instead. Less questions asked.”

Mina supposes that this Yoo Jeongyeon mustn’t be so bad but she still keeps up her guard. “Where are my weapons?” she asks.

“Downstairs,” Jeongyeon replies. She smiles sheepishly. “I had to keep them some distance away from you in case you used them on me.”

One corner of Mina’s mouth tugs upward. “Smart move.”

Jeongyeon’s body tenses up for a second before she relaxes again. Awkwardly, she clears her throat and says, “I can, uh, make you something to eat, if you want. You’ve been out cold for three days.”

“Three days?” Mina murmurs. Her hand shoots up to her ear to feel for her earpiece but it isn’t there. She thinks of Momo and Sana who must surely be looking for her. Then, she feels her stomach churning. “Yeah, I think I could use some breakfast. A _big_ breakfast.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jeongyeon isn’t sparing with the food she prepares. There’s coffee, bread, a variety of other things — “I wasn’t sure what you’d like so I just prepared everything I had” — and Mina eats it all. Three days of no food or water can do wonders to a person’s appetite, and Mina had never been much of an eater.

Mina keeps her guard up even while she eats though by the looks of it she has nothing to worry about because Jeongyeon just watches her curiously as she rips through the bacon and bread. “Is something the matter, Officer Yoo?”

Jeongyeon shakes her head, snapped out of her reverie. She answers, “You’re not from here, are you?”

Mina raises a brow as she shoves the piece of bread with bacon in between into her mouth. She chews it slowly, doesn’t say anything in response to Jeongyeon.

“I’ll be honest,” Jeongyeon continues, “I searched through your things when I found you. Looked for IDs and I found none. I’m guessing you mustn’t be from here and you don’t look like it either.”

Mina swallows down her food and follows it up with some coffee. “You’re right. I’m not from here.”

“Where are you from then?”

“Japan.”

“What’s your name?”

Mina pauses. She considers her options. She _could_ give some false name (it’s not like Jeongyeon could cross check with any database anyway) or she could give her call name, though she supposes if word got around the police ring about a _Hannya_ going around carrying weapons and whatnot, it would be easy to dig up her skeletons. She pours herself some more coffee as she mumbles, “Mina.”

“Mina…?”

“Just Mina.”

Jeongyeon nods. “Tell me, Mina. What’s your business here? I found you bloodied and bruised, two gun shots. Someone clearly tried to kill you and you were obviously trying to run away.”

Mina doesn’t answer. She reaches out in front of her another slice of bread and some jam. After she spreads the jam on her bread slice, she takes a big bite of it.

Jeongyeon gets up from her seat and walks into the next room. Mina’s instincts kick in and she readies herself for the possibility of an attack. She waits and waits, her heart pounding faster, until Jeongyeon finally comes back but all she has with her is a piece of newspaper. Jeongyeon hands it to Mina silently. “I’ve had my guesses,” is all she says.

Mina doesn’t read the headline but the picture is enough. It’s a shot of the tipped over and gunned down Suburban, bodies of their assailants scattered around. Mina puts down the newspaper and resumes chewing on her bread. “Guesses such as?”

Jeongyeon sits back down on her chair and takes a sip of her coffee. “Just because I chose not to turn you in it doesn’t mean that I didn’t ask questions of my own,” she answers simply. “Eye witness reports say they saw three bikers at the scene of the crime, just tailing behind the Suburban before they launched into their attack.”

“What else?”

Jeongyeon regards Mina evenly as she says, “I believe they were supposed to ambush General Park Noshik but were met instead with a rather unpleasant surprise.”

“And you think I’m one of those bikers?”

“I managed to check some traffic surveillance footages from that morning and I found one that captured the entire thing, top to bottom.” Jeongyeon peels a banana and takes her time chewing. “One of the bikers got shot twice: once on the shoulder and another at her abdomen area. Then, the three of them ran off.”

Mina finishes her bread and coffee. “Officer Yoo —”

“Please, just call me Jeongyeon.”

“— _Jeongyeon_ , I see that you’ve pieced the puzzle together already without my help.”

“Just tell me, Mina. Were you one of those sent here to assassinate General Park?”

Mina doesn’t deny it or confirm it. She just says, “You know, this is enough information to turn me and my two companions in. You could be a hero, get a big promotion, earn favor with the big shots.”

“I don’t need any of that,” Jeongyeon mumbles. “I don’t want any of it either.”

Mina tilts her head to the side. “Okay then, so what’s in it for you?”

Jeongyeon purses her lips. “All this unrest and chaos...all of it is the doing of men like Park, and especially of Choi Jungsik. They’re...they’re everything I stand against, everything this country shouldn’t ever succumb to.”

“You know, Jeongyeon, your kind and my kind don’t mix well.”

Jeongyeon circles the rim of her coffee mug with her fingers, lower lip caught between her teeth. Then, she says, “I think we can find a way around that to make it work.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“You go missing for a whole week and come back here telling us to team up with a fucking _cop_?!”

Mina almost laughs at how livid Sana is. Momo chews on her fingernails, a nervous habit.

“Yeah, Mina,” Momo says. “I’m not sure about this. You know we shouldn’t be involving outsiders in this, especially not _cops_.”

Mina leans back into her seat. “She didn’t turn me in even after she had enough evidence to throw me and you guys into jail.”

Sana scoffs. “Is that your sole basis for trusting her?”

“And just how much have you told her?” Momo adds.

“I’ve told her enough,” Mina answers cautiously, “but I didn’t tell her _everything_. She knows only the things I allowed her to know and she’s willing to help us get our job done.”

“Isn’t she just some newbie police officer?” Sana asks, still skeptical. “What’s some small time cop got to offer _us_?”

“Her father was appointed as Commissioner General five years ago before his retirement early this year,” Mina explains. “Her sister, Seungyeon, is a lieutenant in the Air Force, top of her class and friends with all the right people. Jeongyeon’s got the connections and all the right strings to pull for us.”

Sana and Momo throw glances at each other, both looking contemplative. Momo leans forward in her seat when she asks, “Well what’s in it for her?”

Mina smiles. “Nothing. She just thinks she’ll be doing her country some great service if she helps us get rid of Park, which would destabilize Choi’s power.”

“You sure?” Sana says with a click of her tongue. “This is all too...easy. She can’t just want _nothing_. Everyone wants something.”

“Like I said,” Mina replies, “she thinks of this as doing service to her country. South Korea is in shambles right now, and I guess she just thinks herself to be one of the few kind souls who still believe there’s any hope in this world.”

Momo looks at Sana and shrugs. “Sounds fine by me. Just another idealistic sucker.”

Sana furrows her brows. “Okay, let’s say we do let her in on this. I mean, she already knows about us anyway so it’ll be hard to keep her off our backs unless we kill her. But that’s besides the point. As I was saying, hypothetically if we let her help us, what’s our fallback is she ends up being a snitch or backs out halfway through? Or what if she suddenly has a change of heart and she decides to turn us all in?”

Mina shrugs. “Then we kill her.”

“Ice cold,” Momo quips but her lips curl into a smile.

“Will you be able to pull the trigger on her, though?” Sana asks, eyes narrowed.

Mina doesn’t bat an eyelash when she says, “Of course.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

In the following weeks, the news about the assassination attempt at Park is all anyone can talk about, from local news networks to BBC and CNN, especially in light of the assassination attempt at Choi. Jeongyeon keeps the three of them on the loop and provides as much insider information as she can, though as of now there isn’t much they have to work with.

“We’re like sitting ducks here,” Sana whines.

Momo, mouth half full with jokbal, just shrugs. “Waiting it out isn’t so bad.”

“Master isn’t going to be happy about us overextending our stay,” Sana mumbles. “He already gave us hell for blotching it the first time around.”

Mina flips through the documents Jeongyeon had given her. When she finds nothing of use, she sets it aside. To Sana she says, “What matters is that we get this job done. If we have to stay here longer than planned, then we will.”

Sana and Momo make no more comments after that.

One month passes. When Mina isn’t with Sana and Momo, she’s with Jeongyeon. She limits her interactions to those three though of late she’s been spending more time with the latter than the former. It starts with just business — just brief discussions and passing over of documents, nothing more. Then Jeongyeon started asking Mina if she wanted to “hang around” or go get some coffee (“Don’t worry,” Jeongyeon had said bashfully, “I’m not asking you out or whatever. And the café is pretty secluded so you won’t have to worry about being seen either.”) and Mina had said yes each and every time until it just became a routine of theirs.

Mina learns more and more about Jeongyeon. For example, Jeongyeon grew up with a pet golden retriever and it had seven puppies. She has an impressive collection of leather jackets but the tan colored one she wore often is her favorite. She likes her coffee sweet, almost _too_ sweet for Mina’s taste. She believed in Santa until she was twelve. Her family has always been involved with the military and law enforcement, and she felt that it was only right she pursued a career in either of the aforementioned. She originally wanted to join the navy and be a naval officer like her grandfather but she changed her mind in the end. She likes music from the 80s and 90s the best.

Jeongyeon asks Mina about a lot of things too. She skips the personal questions like questions about Mina’s family or about the organization she works under, all because she knows Mina won’t answer them anyway. She asks about lighter things instead like what kind of music did she like, or what her favorite color is, or if she preferred cats over dogs.

“Why’s your call name _Hannya_?” Jeongyeon asks once. “What’s it mean, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Mina explains, “ _Hannya_ is a term from the traditional Japanese Noh theater. The ones where they wear masks, have you seen those?”

Jeongyeon nods. “Yeah I’ve seen pictures and stuff. Never actually watched one performance in my entire life, but carry on.”

“Sana, Momo and I got our call names from the _onryo_ masks used in Noh. _Onryo_ are, literally, vengeful spirits. Sana is _Namanari_ , Momo is _Deigan_ and I’m _Hannya_ — three female _onryo_ , all vengeful spirits that are sorrowful or angry or a mix of both, and mostly spited by their lovers.”

Jeongyeon nods. “That’s pretty cool. Did you guys choose these or were they given to you?”

“They were given.”

“Hm. I’ve seen some of those masks online before and there are some that look pretty nasty. You know, snarling and downright demonic sometimes.”

Mina smiles. “Personally, I think Sana’s — _Namanari_ — is the fiercest looking one out of the three. I think it’s quite fitting for her, actually.”

“But why those? Why...what was the word? _Onryo_ — why vengeful spirits or demons or something?” Jeongyeon asks, brows pulled together.

“Because we’ll be the last thing our targets will ever see,” Mina replies lightly. “We’re their executioners, exacting death the way the _onryo_ are believed to do.”

Jeongyeon quirks her lips to the side but she looks morbidly amused with Mina’s explanation. “Must be a sight to behold.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Can I ask you about something?” Jeongyeon asks. They’re walking back to Jeongyeon’s and the sun is setting in the sky. The sky is a blend of orange and purple hues.

Mina nods. “You know you can.”

Jeongyeon smiles. She drops her voice to a whisper. “I’ve been wondering why you guys — why _Japan_ , I guess — got involved in this. The assassination attempt on Choi didn’t really surprise me but outsiders getting involved...I don’t know. I’ve just been trying to figure it out.”

“Matters of conflicting interests,” Mina says curtly.

Jeongyeon cocks a brow. “Conflicting interests like…?”

Mina smiles half-heartedly. “Let’s just say he doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.”

Jeongyeon ponders on it. They reach her house and when they enter, she offers Mina some hot chocolate. While she prepares it, she meekly says, “I know you said no personal questions but I was just wondering if it would be okay just this once to ask about, you know, personal stuff.”

“You do too much wondering,” Mina teases. She’s been firm on her rules and questions about her personal life she always dodged, but admittedly she’d grown comfortable around Jeongyeon and finds herself saying, “But sure. Just this once.”

“Do you have a family?” Jeongyeon asks right away.

Mina nods slowly. “I wasn’t an orphan and I wasn’t plucked out of the streets, trained to be an assassin and covert agent, among other things, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Oh. Were you close with them then?”

“Not really. As soon as I was old enough they threw me right into training and schooling, and they didn’t want me to visit often.”

“So you got into this willingly, then? Or, like _semi_ -willingly, at least.”

“Something like that. My family has served under the _shinobi_ for centuries so it was only natural that I did the same.”

Jeongyeon smiles at that. “Kind of like me and my family.”

“Yeah, kind of like that.”

“So do you guys...uh... _date_ and stuff?”

Mina chuckles at the blush that creeps into Jeongyeon’s cheeks. “We don’t really have much time to _date_ , and usually marriages are just...economical and political trade-offs. We rarely ever marry outside of the _shinobi_.”

“That doesn’t sound very romantic.”

“There’s not much room for romance where I come from.”

“Are you dating anyone? Or have you ever been with anyone?”

“Officer Yoo, if you just wanted to know about my love life you should have just gotten straight to the point.”

Jeongyeon almost spills her hot chocolate, obviously flustered, and Mina bursts out laughing. “N-no! I didn’t mean it like _that_!”

Mina continues laughing anyway, absolutely endeared. For a moment it feels like she isn’t here in this foreign land to assassinate one of the most powerful men in the country, like she isn’t part of the _shinobi_ and like she’s just another normal girl having a fun time with a person whose company she really likes. It feels like she’s a completely different person with a different story and different worries. Her heart sinks when the moment passes her by so quickly.

Jeongyeon fumbles with her mug of hot chocolate as she murmurs, “I was just curious.”

Mina rests her chin in her hand. “What about you? Got a special someone?”

Jeongyeon shakes her head. “No time for it either.”

Mina wiggles a brow. “Really now?”

“Seriously!” Jeongyeon insist, her face flushed a deep red now. She takes a small sip of her hot chocolate.  “With everything that’s been going on and crime rates spiking up, I barely even have to... _you know_ …”

“My God, you prude,” Mina laughs.

Jeongyeon scratches the back of her head as she laughs sheepishly. “You know,” she says, “you and I aren’t really all that different, or at least our circumstances aren’t.”

Mina stares down at her hot chocolate, feels the light steam that rises up to caress her face. “An assassin and a cop. Not exactly the likeliest of friendships.”

“ _Three_ assassins and a cop,” Jeongyeon corrects. “But you’re right. It’s not the likeliest of set-ups, but I don’t quite mind though.”

“And why is that?”

Jeongyeon puts down her mug but keeps her fingers wrapped loosely around it. She looks at Mina and says, smiling, “Well, I like you.”

Mina is admittedly taken aback. “You...like me.”

Jeongyeon nods, chuckles a little. “You’re really not as cold or aloof as you come off. You’re very calculated and precise when it calls for it, but I don’t know, you’re not stone cold. I don’t _think_ you are.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I see it when you’re with Sana and Momo — you’re affectionate in your own quiet kind of way. You’ve got a whole lot of warmth in you, wrapped neatly beneath this rough and tough exterior, and I don’t know. I guess I like that about you. I respect that.”

Mina gawks at Jeongyeon before she takes a sip of her hot chocolate. Her brains wants to say _I quite like you too_ but instead she murmurs, “I think that’s enough personal questions for today.”

Jeongyeon nods slowly. Then, “But, you know, I’m just saying.”

Mina can’t stop the smile that spreads across her face.

Just then, Mina’s phone rings. The caller ID reads Sana’s name. “Got anything new?” she asks, skipping right through the greetings.

“Something new and big,” Sana replies. Mina can hear the excitement in her voice. “Wherever you are — I’m pretty sure you’re with that cop you like so much — turn on the TV or find one. Switch it to a news channel.”

Mina gets up from where she’s sitting and, Jeongyeon tailing behind her, walks to the living room where the TV is. She mouths _remote?_ to Jeongyeon, who hands it to her. She follows Sana’s instructions.

“After what is believed to have been a botched assassination attempt on General Park Noshik,” the news anchor says, “Park has been charged by the Moon Administration with felony charges for leaking highly classified information that is considered a threat to national security, among other charges. He could be facing between five to ten years in jail i—”

Mina lowers down the volumes, looks to Jeongyeon briefly and then says to Sana, “I’ll call you again in a bit.” She hangs up after.

Jeongyeon’s brows are pulled into a frown. “Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting that to happen,” she remarks. “Is that what you meant when you said he doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut?”

Mina nods. “Park is...quite the character. He’s got loads of personal agendas. It’s been rumored that on the side, he’s been helping leak highly classified military information to North Korea. I’m not quite sure yet why or if this just happens to all be part of some grand scheme of Choi’s — who knows, really — but it poses threat to Japan too. We’ve already been tipped off a number of times about possible attacks and nuclear threats.”

“Huh,” Jeongyeon replies, mildly surprised.

“Huh,” Mina echoes.

Jeongyeon crosses her arms over her chest. “If I were Park,” she muses, “I would plead guilty before they find more shit to use against me. At least that would give me the chance to negotiate a little, maybe negotiate to shorten the sentence.”

Mina pockets her phone. “That would put him out of our reach, though.”

“Not _exactly_ ,” Jeongyeon replies. Mina can almost see the gears turning in Jeongyeon’s mind and she can see where Jeongyeon is getting at. “I mean, you’re _you_. You’ll find a way.”

Mina thinks back to earlier — her easy laughter, the teasing and how comfortable everything was. It feels like _ages_ ago. It almost feels like a dream, something plucked out of the recesses of her mind, something she knows she can never have and never afford. With a resigned sigh, she says, “I suppose you’re right.”

Before she leaves, she thanks Jeongyeon for the day out and the hot chocolate. She lingers where she stands even after Jeongyeon closes the door. When she looks up at the sky she sees that the stars have come out. She stares at the door for a long time, contemplating maybe knocking and...and then what? She didn’t really know. She just wants to hear Jeongyeon’s voice again or see the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles. But Mina knows there are some things she can’t want or ever even dream of having.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next three months are a frenzy of events and pressure to Mina. There is constant planning, various contingency plans and many explanations made to their superiors about their extended stay. They promise to get the job done but they are pressured to get it done _soon_ , otherwise they would send others to do the job instead. Mina would never allow that to happen. It would bruise her pride.

Park has not pleaded guilty yet either, so they really had no choice but to wait it out. They couldn’t pull another ambush because repeating it again with be an amateur move. They’ve also scouted out the place he lives in and they know they’ll be dead before they even get to lay a finger on him because of the crazy security measures. They know that this time, they would have to get up close and personal with the man if they want to get this over with.

In the meantime, Momo develops a fondness for jokbal and Sana develops a fondness for a girl named Dahyun, a barista at the coffee shop Sana liked (and now Mina sees why). Mina spends her time with Jeongyeon, as always, and now they talk less about Park and more about the things that interest them — _actual_ socialising and conversations that didn’t make Mina’s heart feel so heavy. That’s just the effect Jeongyeon had on her: she could lift off all the burden and grimness that Mina had to carry and she helped her live out her unsung wishes of living life like any regular person. She can hear their masters in her head scolding her for entertaining such thoughts but it becomes easier to block them out.

Jeongyeon becomes a pillar of familiarity, comfort and stability for Mina and she wonders how she’ll be able to live on without that once her mission is over.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It's a lazy Thursday afternoon when Jeongyeon suddenly asks Mina, "What would you do or be if you weren't, _you know_ ," she gestures to Mina. When Mina just looks at her blankly, she fumbles to add, "I was just wondering if you ever considered doing something else than what it is you do now. Or, like, if you had any options to begin with, if you get what I mean."

Mina averts her eyes from Jeongyeon's, choosing to stare outside the cafe window instead. She's grown very fond of and comfortable in this hole in the wall cafe, and the staff were always very accommodating to the two of them. Once, they'd been given free drinks just because they spent so much time there, always whispering or giggling about something. Mina supposes that the staff think she and Jeongyeon are together, and really, she doesn't blame them. She can't. It's become a little endearing, though, how the staff never really try to be sly about sticking their noses into Mina and Jeongyeon's business. The fondness she feels blossom in her chest is replaced with a soft blow of sadness — shes honestly going to miss this place once her mission is over and she has to go back home to Japan. Or maybe it isn't so much the place itself that she'll really miss, maybe it's spending time with Jeongyeon here. Mina's not usually so easily attached to things and places and people, especially not when she's on missions that lasted as long (if not longer) than this, but she knows that she'll miss Korea and this small neighborhood and Jeongyeon when she goes back. She tries not to think about when she'll get to see Jeongyeon again or if this is going to be the last and only time they'll ever be in the same place and breathe the same air. 

Jeongyeon clears her throat.

"Oh," Mina murmurs, immediately snapped out of her reverie. She smiles apologetically. "Sorry, I..."

"Drifted off again," Jeongyeon finishes for her, a smile slowly tugging at the corners of her lips. She pauses before she continues, "It's okay if you don't want to talk about it. I was just really curious, is all. If this is a sensitive topic for you or you just really don't want to talk, then I'll respect that."

Mina shakes her head. "No, it's not that. I just suddenly, um, thought of something."

Jeongyeon observes Mina and then slowly nods. "So..."

"I think I'd want to be a dancer—a ballerina, specifically," Mina replies, slowly smiling. "I've always been really fascinated by ballet and as a kid, I kept trying to sneak off to one of the nearby dance studios." She thinks of when she was no older than ten or maybe eleven and all the times she would sneak out with Sana and Momo to the town, if only to get a glance of the ballerinas whose prowess and grace she admired so much. Even as a kid she was already aware of how different yet also the same fighting and ballet were: both required grace and finesses, power and strength, sharpness of mind and mastery of the body. But ballet made her feel different from how fighting made her feel. Ballet had a different kind of grace, a kind of  _freedom_ and _control_ all at once, that was so magnetizing to Mina as a child. Sana and Momo knew how badly, how  _desperately_ , Mina wanted to learn how to dance but they always knocked sense into her.

Mina takes Jeongyeon's patient silence as a sign to continue talking. She finishes the last drops of her coffee before she says, "It goes without saying that where I come from, there aren't any ballet lessons, let alone dancing lessons in general. And even if I could sneak off to the dance studio, I couldn't have possibly actually trained properly. For one, I can't keep sneaking off everyday or even every other day otherwise I could get reprimanded—and our punishments were pretty severe. And, say, even if I  _were_ able to do that without a hitch or without getting snitched on, it would have been difficult for me to concentrate on ballet and refining my technique. The ballerinas I saw trained almost as hard as we did, except instead of perfecting the craft of kil— _fighting_ , they perfect the craft of dancing.

"They were all so...so  _beautiful_ , Jeongyeon. The way they danced, the way the carried themselves, the hours and hours they put into their physique and technique—I was so in awe of them. I wished I could be as graceful as them, as nimble, as powerful. I wondered how to translate that into the training room during sparring sessions, but it's still all so different, you know? Fighting, dancing—if you were to ask me, I'd say they work around a lot of similar principles with regards to technique, timing,  _choreography_. But all of that still felt so different in ballet than they did in fighting, and more than anything I wanted to learn how to dance. I wanted to be as graceful and as beautiful as they were and even now, I still wish the same. I could never afford the luxury of actualizing that, so I just stuck to learning all I could about it—the various names for the techniques, ballet scores, the whole nine yards—at least on a textbook level. On my bad days, sometimes I'd get lost in my little daydreams of being a ballerina and performing on stage for an audience, and then everything...everything just hurts a little less, you know?"

A few moments of silence pass between them and Jeongyeon's lips curl into a warm smile, fond even. Without her usual bashfulness, she tells Mina, "I think you'd make an amazing ballerina, Mina."

Mina feels her cheeks flush just a little as she giggles, "You really think so?"

"Of course I do!" Jeonyeon nods eagerly, her eyes dancing. "Knowing you, you'd give it your all, your hundred percent, and I know you could easily become one of the best ballerinas the world has ever seen just because you're, you know," she grins in a crooked but charming kind of way, " _you_. You're  _you_ , and that's all the reason I really need to believe that you'd be an amazing ballerina."

Although taken aback, Mina manages to tease, "I'm flattered, Officer Yoo. But realistically, those are all just pipe dreams."

"You can't ever say for sure," Jeongyeon counters lightly. "I mean, just humor me a little here: you can never tell where life will take you or what exactly will happen tomorrow or a year later or twenty years later. So I don't think it's silly to still cling onto the hopes of learning ballet and becoming a real ballerina."

"Always the optimist, aren't you?"

"Some say my optimism brinks on the point of foolishness," Jeongyeon jokes. Then, more serious this time but still with the same bright smile and dancing eyes, she says, "I don't think it's an impossible dream. You can make it happen, let's—" She clears her throat, but Mina already knows what she meant to say.

Mina feels something so strong fermenting itself into her bones, feels something bloom and blossom in her chest, and she thinks that maybe she's teetering on the edge of something important, something so altogether foreign and welcomed, and something that she knows only Jeongyeon can give her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The peace and quiet are short-lived, and though Mina is far from surprised, she can't help but feel disappointed and even a little disheartened either.

As it turns out, Jeongyeon was right about what Park would do. Park pleads guilty and lands himself in jail. His sentence is five years.

“This is tricky,” Momo sighs. “We’re gonna have to infiltrate the prison at this rate, and there’s just three of us and we don’t have any connections inside.”

Sana taps her finger on her chin as she thinks. She says, “I was thinking of something a little more along the lines of this: one of us has to get ourselves in there, like really become a prisoner. He won’t be able to go anywhere so more or less we’ll have him where we want him. Then, we strike.”

Jeongyeon’s eyes dart back and forth between Sana, Momo and Mina. She clears her throat and says, “I-I think I can help you guys with that.”

Mina raises a brow. “You know how to get one of us into a maximum security prison?”

Jeongyeon nods. With her hands on her hips, Sana says, “Well, spill.”

“Personally, I can’t do much to get you thrown in there,” Jeongyeon explains. “But I know which strings to pull to get you there.”

Now, Momo frowns. “So you want us to include _more_ people into this?”

“That’s too risky,” Sana mutters. “We’ve allowed you to help us but involving _more_ outsiders could be disastrous.”

Mina purses her lips. “Let’s just hear Jeongyeon out,” she says in the end. She knows later Sana will berate her for being too soft on Jeongyeon and for being so trusting, but she doesn’t really care. She knows Jeongyeon and trusts her.

Jeongyeon smiles appreciatively at Mina before she goes back to being serious. “Obviously you’d have to do something pretty crazy to get yourselves thrown in there,” she says, “or just piss off the right people. Either way, it has to be pretty big. And we can’t just fake that or doctor some papers to get you in there either. That would mean bribing people and shelling out cash even, which means more time lost. The relatively faster way to get in there is to enter as an actual prisoner or criminal.”

“And you have someone who can be our inside man?” Sana asks. As always, she is cautious but she looks like she’s gradually giving in and allowing herself to be swayed.

Jeongyeon nods. “Leave that to me. I’ll work on the arrangements.”

“And you’re _sure_ we can trust this person?” Sana presses.

“I trust her with my life.”

Mina asks, “Who is this person, exactly?”

Jeongyeon smiles crookedly. “She’s my ex.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Im Nayeon is...a lot of things. Mina has spent a grand total of twenty minutes in the same room as her but she’s got a presence larger than life that it almost makes Mina’s head spin.

Nayeon, Jeongyeon told them, worked directly with the supermax prison and hated Choi and Park’s guts as much as the next person. She is crass and more often than not she overstepped boundaries, but she is also idealistic and shared the same views as Jeongyeon. “She has a good heart,” Jeongyeon said, “but she can be a little...difficult sometimes.” It’s easy to see that she and Jeongyeon have known each other for a very long time, something beyond just being exes.

After Jeongyeon explains _everything_ , Nayeon just cocks a brow and takes a long sip of her iced latte. Everyone has their eyes on her, waiting for her reaction. She releases the straw with a pop of her lips and says, “Okay.”

Momo scowls. “Okay…?”

“Okay,” Nayeon repeats. When they gawk at her she sighs and adds, “I’ve got an idea already.”

Jeongyeon blinks at her. “ _Already?_ ”

Nayeon nods. “The entire time you were babbling on and on, I was already thinking up ways to make it... _believable_. You know, thinking of a way to get one of you in there. All I need to know is which one of you is going to take one for the team.”

Mina, Sana and Momo simultaneously reply, “I will.” They stare at each other.

“I asked for _one_ not _three_ of you,” Nayeon deadpans.

“I’ll do it,” Mina murmurs. When Momo and Sana look like they’re about to argue with her, she insists, “No. _I’ll_ do it. I need you two to be my eyes and ears out here. I’ll get the job done.”

Mina notices the way Jeongyeon balls her hands into fists on her lap and the way her shoulders tense. However, she says nothing to oppose Mina’s decision. Nayeon’s eyes flicker between her and Jeongyeon and it’s as though some sort of understanding passes over her face.

“Fine,” Sana and Momo concede.

Nayeon claps her hands together, drawing all the attention back to her. She smiles, her two front teeth touching her lower lip and her eyes dance. “Okay, so the plan goes a little something like this—”

 

 

* * *

 

 

When find time to be alone, Jeongyeon asks Mina, "Are you sure about this?"  
  
It's been a full day since they met up with Nayeon to discuss plans. A full day since Mina volunteered herself. She counts the marshmallows in her hot chocolate before she answers, "Of course I am. I wouldn't have volunteered if I wasn't."  
  
Jeongyeon settles down on the seat opposite Mina's. It's their routine now to go to Jeongyeon's house and have hot chocolate; Jeongyeon would always give Mina more marshmallows than she gave herself. Chin in her hand, she asks again, "Are you sure?"  
  
Mina looks up with a lopsided smile. "You sound like you don't want me to be."  
  
Jeongyeon doesn't blush this time, not like she normally might have. She just looks Mina dead in the eyes and Mina can just feel the somberness radiating from her. "What's wrong?" Mina asks.  
  
"It's just..." Jeongyeon starts. "Couldn't you have let Sana or Momo do it? Why does it have to be you?"  
  
"Why can't it be me?" Mina presses. "Why don't you want it to be me?"  
  
Jeongyeon purses her lips. "Mina, tell me something: have you ever fallen in love?"  
  
Mina stares at Jeongyeon in surprise. "What on earth does that have to do with anything?"  
  
"Just answer. Yes or no."  
  
"No," Mina mumbles. "But...but only because —"  
  
"Because you've never had the time for it, because you won't allow yourself some of it," Jeongyeon finishes for her. She doesn't sound like she's chastising her, instead sounding sad about it.  
  
"Jeongyeon, where are you getting with all of this?" Mina asks, voice strained.  
  
Jeongyeon hesitates for a moment before she answers, "I don't think it's fair that I just met you and you're going to leave me already."  
  
"You make it sound like I'm going to die," Mina tries to joke.  
  
"You don't get it, do you?"  
  
Pause.  
  
"I do get it," Mina whispers. "I do."  
  
"Just...it's just all the possibilities, all the things that we could have or at least give a shot."  
  
"You know I can't..."  
  
"You never know if you don't give it a try. Give me a try and we can just let fate do its thing, because I do like you a lot, Mina. I know you know that."  
  
Mina mumbles, "I know."  
  
"If you'd let me," Jeongyeon continues, shyer this time, "I'd really like to take you out on a proper date. I've been asking around and there's this ballet show—is that what you call it? I have no idea—coming here and I thought maybe we could go watch it together. You know, have dinner at a fancy restaurant before we go to the show, and...I don't know. We'll figure it out."  
  
Jeongyeon's smile is so hopeful that it breaks Mina's heart.  Softly, she says, "Jeongyeon..."  
  
Jeongyeon sighs. "I...I don't know just how long it'll take for you to get the job done, and I'm really not going to stop you from that. I know you — duty comes first. But after that...can't we give it a shot, Mina? Can't we—can't we make it happen, make _us_ happen?"  
  
Mina's heart feels like it's been crushed under someone's foot. She stares back down at her hot chocolate and tries to focus on the marshmallows but she can't, not when she can feel the full weight of Jeongyeon's gaze on her and not when she can hear the pounding of her heart. She doesn't know how to tell Jeongyeon that she's asking too much from her and that she doesn't know how to give Jeongyeon the future that she sees them sharing. Mina would be a liar if she said that she isn't tempted at all by it, that she doesn't want it, but...but Mina doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know if she'll be capable of doing what she needs to do to explore the possibilities Jeongyeon's opened up for her, and she doesn't know if she's even worthy at all. So, she asks in a choked voice,"Why me?"  
  
"I don't know," Jeongyeon replies honestly. "But I can't do anything about it now. It's you."  
  
Mina laughs softly but her heart still weighs a ton in her chest. "You really want to make this difficult for me, don't you?"  
  
"It doesn't have to be."  
  
"But it _is,_ Jeongyeon, you know it is. You know where I stand."  
  
Jeongyeon becomes quiet for a moment. They don't touch their mugs of hot chocolate, instead just hoping the silence doesn't suffocate them. After more than five minutes of silence, Jeongyeon tells Mina, "I can wait and then I'll take you out on that date and...and I don't know. I guess we'll just have to see where that takes us. I trust you Mina, and i just want you to trust me too. We can't say for sure how things will go or work out, but I promise you that I—I'll find a way, for you, for us." She beams at Mina hopefully. "The possibilities are endless, Mina. I'll wait for you, I promise, but just trust me too, okay?"  
  
Jeongyeon's smile tugs at Mina's heartstrings but she can't get herself to smile back. Jeongyeon had just promised her an infinity of possibilities, promised her some semblance of a future and stability, and Mina really can't stop herself from wanting all of it, not when Jeongyeon smiles at her like she's hung the moon and the constellations in the sky. In the end, Mina just looks away, unable to get herself to make any promises to Jeongyeon.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

"What's troubling you, Mina?" Sana asks. Momo's eyes dart back and forth between Mina and Sana until they eventually settle solely on Mina. "You look like you've got a lot on your mind."

Mina chuckles dryly. "I suppose you could say that, yes."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Momo asks this time, though Mina knows what she's really trying to ask.  _It's about Jeongyeon, isn't it?_

_Yes, it is_. "I don't know, really. I'm barely even able to actually wrap my mind around all of this," Mina murmurs.

Sana lets a few more seconds of silence pass before she says somberly, "This is our last shot at killing Park."

"I know," is all Mina says in response. What else is there to say, anyway?

"You better..." Sana's voice trails off and Mina's heart aches. Momo looks down at her hands, lip caught between her teeth, and Sana finally says, "You better come back to us, okay? I...w-we'll be waiting for you here, so you better come back to us, come back home."

Mina didn't think anything could tear apart her heart more after everything Jeongyeon had said, but here she was, being ripped apart at the seams completely. Mina never considered their base as home, but Sana and Momo are the closest she has to sisters, to an actual family, to  _home_. She couldn't imagine a world without them but she also couldn't imagine a world without Jeongyeon now. What would they feel and what would they say if they knew about all these thoughts running through Mina's head—thoughts of starting anew, thoughts of burning all the bridges behind her, thoughts of building a life that maybe had no place for Sana and Momo in it anymore.

Unable to help herself anymore, Momo gets up from her seat and rushes to Mina, enveloping her in a tight hug. Mina can barely swallow down the lump in her throat when Sana joins in on the hug too, almost squeezing the air right out of Mina's lungs. But this—this is what home has felt like for so many years to Mina. She's transported back to when they were kids and they would huddle like this whenever one of them was sad or hurt; some things will never change, and Mina can only hope that once she comes back, Sana and Momo will understand her and her wishes, that they'll forgive her and forgive Jeongyeon. But for now, she holds onto them tight like she's clinging on for dear life.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Mina stares deep into her reflection in the restroom's mirror, tries to chase away any sense of nervousness that's trying to sneak its way into her system. Admittedly, not having to watch Jeongyeon be so jittery is helping Mina keep her cool better. It's not that she thinks she's incapable of doing what she needs to do—she's done far worse things to far worse people, so this thing Nayeon is asking her to do is  _nothing_. What's really eating at her mind and her heart is, well,  _Jeongyeon_ and everything they talked about. Jeongyeon and her firm belief that things would work out perfectly between them, that the stars would finally align and Mina would finally be given a chance to taste a life she never thought she could have.  _That_ 's what bothers Mina. It's a little hard to go kamikaze when the one thing unwittingly holding you back is right there with you, waiting for you outside the dingy restroom of a noisy club.

"Are you just gonna stare at yourself all day or are we actually going to get shit done?" comes Nayeon's voice. From the mirror, Mina sees her standing by the door, lips curled into a small sneer. She supposes that's just Nayeon's default expression; Nayeon seems like the type of person who always had something to laugh about or sneer at, something that only she knew, her little inside joke and secret. She can't tell exactly what it is Nayeon is thinking now, but she does wonder how Jeongyeon ever dated someone like her. Someone so...unlike Jeongyeon, in so many ways. "Jeongyeon didn't tell me you were a bit of a narcissist."

Mina scoffs as she turns around to face Nayeon completely this time. They're stuck in a stare down, and Mina knows that Nayeon is sizing her up the way she's sizing Nayeon up. She also knows that Nayeon was  _behaving_ herself the first time they met to discuss the very plan that's about to be set into action tonight. There's a different kind of fire in Nayeon's eyes now, a different kind of energy and electricity. She supposes this is the closest she's going to see of the real Nayeon.

A few more moments pass in silence before Nayeon's eyes soften for a second as she says, "You don't need to explain anything or explain yourself to me, but I know that Jeongyeon cares about you and you most definitely care about her. Now, I'd hate to sound like an ass, but you better come back out of there alive because I'd hate to see Jeongyeon heartbroken." A corner of her lip tugs upward, and Mina thinks that Nayeon looks a little weary herself. "I promised her that you'd be okay, and I intend to keep my word, but you need to do your part too, princess. Do it for  _her_ , yeah?"

Her expression remains even but her throat feels thick as she mulls over what Nayeon had said.  _Jeongyeon made her promise_ , she thinks, her heart aching. With a tight smile, Mina replies, "You're quite the talker, aren't you?"

Nayeon shakes her head, lips curled. "Come on," she says, throwing the door open, "I'm starting to get bored."

They walk back together and it all finally begins to sink in slowly for Mina.  _This is it_ , her mind tells her. She doesn't steal a glance at Jeongyeon just yet, otherwise she might start to feel nervous again. Instead, she focuses her mind on her task, tries to pull out the tune of a ballet score from the recesses of her mind to help ease the tension building up in her muscles. Nayeon, on the other hand, doesn't look bothered at all. 

“Tell me again how you convinced me to do this,” Mina says into Nayeon’s ear. The music at the club is ear-shatteringly loud and she can feel every thump of the bass shake her insides. Sana and Momo hang back at their table and Jeongyeon watches her quietly but nervously. Mina can sense it.

Nayeon grins. “ _You_ volunteered.”

Mina scoffs. “Which one is he?”

Nayeon jerks her chin to point at the man they’d come here for. He must be around their age, average looking but clearly of high social status. He’s sitting at a table on the other end of the room, surrounded by his friends and some women. Mina knows close to nothing about him but something about the haughtiness in the way he carries himself ticks her off. It almost makes what she’s about to do a little easier.

“No going back,” Nayeon says to Mina above the noise of the club. “No holding back.”

Mina looks over her shoulder to where Jeongyeon, Sana and Momo are sitting. She focuses especially on Jeongyeon, who stiffly nods back at her. _Do what you have to do_ , she says with her eyes. Mina tears her eyes away with difficulty.

Three shaky breaths later, Mina strides across the club to where their target is sitting. He looks up at her, eyes dancing and excited, and she meets his face with her fist.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Nayeon tells her not to cause a fuss when she steps through the prison gates and Mina really does try her best not to. She stays calm and _behaved_ as they usher her through the usual procedures, keeps her mouth shut when she hears one of the guards make a lewd comment even though she wishes she could shut _him_ up instead.

“Keep your head down for now,” Nayeon had told her. “You’ll have quite the reputation already after you sent Governor Baek’s son to the hospital, practically snapped in half.”

“Did it really have to be a governor’s son?” Mina asked, wrists already hurting from the handcuffs.

Nayeon grinned. “I guess Jeongyeon didn’t tell you I have a flare for dramatics.”

Keep her head down, Mina does.

If anything, Nayeon’s plan works just as well as she said it would. Beating someone up probably shouldn’t have landed her into a supermax prison but that wasn’t just some regular Joe’s son. It was a governor’s son and he had all the power to have his son’s assailant thrown into the worst of the gutters, unknowingly helping her instead of punishing her. Nayeon’s dramatics had some use, at least.

Her welcome is unusually quiet. Her fellow inmates at the female ward of the supermax size her up and not one regards her with kindness or warmth. She doesn’t expect it anyway. She reminds herself to keep her head down, to not stand so proudly or make it look like she was ready to brawl with someone. She can only imagine the headache that would give her _and_ Nayeon.

The cell she’s placed isn’t as spacious as she’d hoped it to be. She has three cellmates who gawk at her when she enters. There’s a small toilet area at the back and their sleeping mats are rolled up neatly, stacked to the side. She counts four of them and assumes they added another one just for her. Mina sits by herself at a corner of the cell, shying away from any form of communication with her cellmates. They still eye her curiously but they don’t say anything to her. Even when it’s time for dinner she just keeps to herself, avoiding catching anyone’s eye lest it gets too heated and a fight starts. She can hear the murmurs around her accompanied by the stares.

The food is bland at best, and she only takes a few spoonfuls of it before she puts it aside and discards of her tray and utensils.

She walks back alone to her cell and her mind wanders to Jeongyeon. It makes her heart twist and ache so she shoves aside any and all thoughts she has of the other girl. She wonders for the first (but not the last) time if she’d made the right decision.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Everything goes according to plan and Mina actually starts to fare quite well among the other inmates. She learns to get along with her cellmates and even learns their names — Yeeun, Ayeon and Minyoung. She doesn’t open up to them easily, of course, but she learns to slowly warm up to them. She figures that if she’s going to be holed up here longer than she expects, she should at least try to make some friends. Her cellmates aren’t Sana or Momo, but they’ll do and they have their own kind of charm.

Momo pays her a visit four weeks into her sentence. “How’re you holding up?” she asks, keeping her voice low.

“I’m getting a little bored, honestly,” Mina replies, smiling just a little. She looks around the visitation area where a few other prisoners have their loved ones or lawyers over. “What’s the plan now?”

“Nayeon will handle that.”

“How will she ‘handle that’, exactly?”

Momo shrugs. “She just said ‘you’ll just _know_ ’.”

Mina almost rolls her eyes. “You should tell her to not be so vague next time, or dramatic.”

“Well, I’m guessing she either hasn’t thought of something yet or she’s going to get some of the guards involved. You know, the usual. Cause some hysterics so you can sneak out just long enough to get the job done.”

“I don’t like how I’m more inclined to believe the former more than the latter.”

Momo laughs. “You and me both.”

"How are you and Sana doing?" Mina asks, a pang of sadness hitting her.

"Well," Momo replies with a sad smile and small shrug, "obviously, we miss you. It isn't the same without you around, and Sana constantly nags at me now too, which is really annoying." She chews on her lower lip, ducks her head just the slightest. "But we miss you a lot."

"I miss you guys too," Mina says, voice dropping even lower than a whisper now. The silence that falls between the two of them makes Mina think of Jeongyeon and it sends a wave of emotions crashing down on her. She thinks that maybe Momo knows exactly who she's thinking about right now, but Momo doesn't say anything, seemingly lost in her own thoughts too.

Mina doesn’t ask Momo about Jeongyeon because she knows it’ll only leave her feeling lonely and leave her yearning. She knows once she even just _thinks_ of Jeongyeon she’ll just spiral, and it’s the last thing she needs when she has to be focused on the task at hand. She still keeps Jeongyeon in her prayers though and she finds strength in the memory of Jeongyeon’s warm smile. In the meantime, she counts the days until she can see her again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

As it turns out, Momo was right about her second guess. Mina is surprised when one of the guards discreetly hands her a map, a layout of the entire supermax, neatly hidden between sheets of newspapers. Her cellmates hardly pay any attention to them. He doesn’t say anything or even look at her, continuing his rounds around the other cells handing food or newspapers to the other inmates. When her cellmates are fast asleep, Mina scans the layout; there’s one spot marked with a big red X and notes scattered around (she recognizes Sana’s handwriting and she assumes the other bits must have been written by Nayeon). She even traces down a preferable path to sneak into the men’s ward and how to get to Park’s cell. It’s deeper into the prison in one of the areas saved for high profile inmates such as Park himself. She goes over the directions again and again until her eyes grow tired and until the first rays of sunlight stream into their cell.

She finds herself knee deep in trouble when she breaks the arm of an inmate who’d been picking on another woman for no fathomable reasons. The cherry on top is when she swings around and, by reflex, punches the guard who’d been trying to diffuse their fight. It lands her into the ‘correction cell’ for a week — no visits, not even a proper sleeping mat. She doesn’t mind though because it gives her enough time to plan and to train. Her knuckles are chaffed and cut from boxing the wall (it’s not like she had a punching bag) and she doesn’t stop even when the guard barks at her to. It earns her another two weeks in seclusion.

The only downside to seclusion is that it gives her more time to think of Jeongyeon and all the...the _possibilities_. Possibilities of an actual relationship, possibilities of having something so normal and natural in her life, possibilities of all the things she didn’t think she could ever allow herself to want. Her kind walks a lonely road but she wonders if it won’t be so bad if she actually tries to divert from that path and pave her own. Possibilities are all she can think of but she keeps herself grounded to reality — she knows that actually being in a relationship will be difficult because no one would approve and she would always have to be back at homebase, always at everyone’s disposal. Duty would come first always even if sometimes she finds herself wishing she could just be selfish. She wants what Jeongyeon has to offer but she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to actually do anything about it. She knows a kiss will never be enough and she knows she’ll only want more. Excess and want are never a good mix.

They finally allow her back into her cell but not before one of the guards ushering her slips her something wrapped with cloth. She looks around cautiously before she takes it in her hands and tucks it into the waistband of her pants. She feels the cold metal of it pressing into her skin through the cloth it’s wrapped with. Before he opens the cell to let her in, he whispers, “An alarm will be set off — just wait for it and that’s your cue. It should give you an hour at most to sneak in and get back here.”

“Anything else?”

“Miss Im ordered us to release you after,” he says. He also looks around cautiously for any prying eyes and ears. “It won’t be an official or _legal_ release, so we’ll usher you out secretly. Your companions will be waiting for you outside the gates, she said. Any and all records you have here will be destroyed immediately.”

Mina nods. He uncuffs her and she steps back into her cell, breathing in the (relatively) fresher air. None of her cellmates are there, so she could catch some proper sleep. Before the guard leaves, he says one last time, “Remember: just wait for the signal.”

When he leaves, Mina unwraps the thing he’d given her. It turns out to be a six-round pocket handgun. She’s almost sure this must have been Sana or Nayeon’s idea of a joke, but she’ll take it over a knife. It would get the job done faster if she had to sneak in and then out as opposed to a knife. She wraps it up again and finds a safe spot in the room to hide it in. She settles for the toilet tank. After she hides it, she spreads out her mat on the floor and pulls her blanket around her shoulders. It’s really not that much different from the mat she had on the seclusion cell, but it feels like a luxury anyway. In a matter of minutes she dozes off. She dreams of Jeongyeon.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The alarm blares through the entire facility at around two in the morning. Mina gets up immediately and she grabs the gun as fast as she can before her cellmates notice. She keeps it by her hip again just like how she’d gotten it. The cell is flung open and the guard (Mina recognizes him; he’s the same one that has given her the gun) tells them to hurry. She hears murmurs about a fire and about evacuation from the other cellmates that are being ushered outside. She spots the guard that had given her the gun and when their eyes lock, he nods at her and gives her the go signal. Mina ducks out of sight as fast as she can and her mind goes on autopilot.

She’s walked around the women’s ward enough to be familiar with all its nooks and crannies, but her memory doesn’t fail her either because she can remember the instructions on the map. She makes all the right turns and avoids being sighted by anyone. When she passes by a window, she sees that there _is_ a fire at the women’s side of the supermax. She doesn’t stick around to watch the flames though.

The only uncomfortable part of getting to the men’s ward is going through the air shafts. It’s tight enough as is but she also had to find her way around it as quickly as possible. She only had limited time to get there and make her way back the same way. By the time she’s finally wormed and crawled her way to the (literal) drop-off point, her skin is sticky with sweat and she’s beginning to get a migraine from the heat. Mina forces aside any thoughts about how uncomfortable she’s filling though and pops open the vent, scanning her surroundings before dropping down. She lands with a very soft thud, always light on her feet.

Mina silently makes her way through the long corridor. It’s unusually quiet and unusually empty. If this was Nayeon’s doing then she sure as hell had more power than Mina had thought, and she sure knew all the right strings to pull to make it happen. Part of Mina stills remains wary, though, because too much silence could never mean a good thing. She takes the gun in her hand now, finger light but steady on the trigger.

She makes her footsteps fall louder and heavier, letting the sound echo. Down the hall where Park’s cell is, she hears shuffling. Mina can almost taste the fear and anxiety and it makes her predatory instincts kick in. It’s been a while since she’s felt it — that rush of blood to the head, the jackhammer pounding of her heart, the heavy breaths, the toe curling and body trembling adrenaline rush. She feels like herself and not like herself all at once. She feels powerful but she also feels like a monster.

_Hannya_. Executioner. Mina. Her chest tightens. She will be the last thing he sees.

“W-who’s there?” Park asks, his voice audibly and obviously quivering. Mina finds it pathetic how cowards like him could run around playing god when he’s trembling now.

“ _What’s going on?!_ ”

Mina tunes out his voice and focuses on her breathing. She tries not to let the adrenaline get too out of hand because she knows it could possibly backfire. She needs to focus and stay sharp. Breathe in, breathe out. She thinks of Jeongyeon, thinks of how she’ll be out of here soon and she’ll get to see Jeongyeon again.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Mina shoots the lock of his cell and throws the door open. Park jumps back, pressing himself against the wall of his cell. Looking at him now, Mina starts to feel just the slightest amount of pity for him. Without all his bravado and machismo, he looks weak and vulnerable, sweating through his shirt in fear. She still has five bullets left, but she decides to ruffle his feathers a little by aiming and shooting near his face. He yelps when the gun goes off with a bang. The bullet grazes his ear and Mina watches blood trickle down the side of his face.

“Please,” he begs. “Please, _please_ don’t — I’m _begging_ you, I—”

Mina lunges forward and gives him a solid kick to the torso. It sends him lurching forward, down on his knees. He wheezes and coughs. For good measure, she grabs the back of his neck and knees him in the face. She hears something crack upon contact and when she pulls her knee away, she sees that she’s broken his nose. All the while, he wheezes and begs.

Mina holds the gun with steady hands and positions it right between his brows, point blank. A strange sense of calm washes over her now. Every muscle in her body relaxes. This is it. All she has to do is pull the trigger and she can finally be out of here and with some time to spare.

She doesn’t believe in last words. She’s about to squeeze the trigger when Park sobs through all the snot and blood, “ _Please_ , I’m begging you, God, I’m begging you. I—God, _please_! I-I can’t die, my family, my wife and kids, they—”

Mina’s entire body freezes. Her breath hitches at her throat. _What the fuck are you doing?_ she can hear Sana’s voice shout at her in her mind. _Shoot him!_ She tries to pull the trigger but she can’t even move her finger by a centimeter. Her head starts to feel light on her shoulders when her mind wanders to Jeongyeon. Jeongyeon and all the possibilities and promises and what-could-have-beens, Jeongyeon and that strange warm and fuzzy way she makes Mina feel, Jeongyeon and how she makes Mina feel like she’s home and like she didn’t have to live like a machine anymore.

For the first time, Mina chokes.

She barely has time to register that Park’s managed to disarm the gun from her and hits her square in the chest with an uppercut. The wind gets knocked out of her lungs. She sees his mouth moving but his words sound garbled in her ears. Even her vision is starting to get shaky. Mina only snaps out of it when she sees Park hover above her with the gun in his hand, ready to shoot; she kicks his hand and the gun flies out of his hand, landing at the other end of the cell. Mina is unable to do anything more before Park’s fist comes flying at her face and she feels white hot pain shoot through every vein of her body.

Mina hears noise in the background: shouting, hurried footsteps, more shouting. She can’t make out a thing they’re saying. She tries to steady her gaze, tries to fight back, but her body gives up on her. Then everything fades to black.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Mina wakes up, she’s greeted by an unfamiliar face. The girl looks to be about her age and she watches Mina intently. Mina stares back at her through the haze of sleep and when she tries to talk, she coughs instead. Pain is all she feels and her lungs feel like they’re on fire. The girl crosses her arms over her chest and says, “I was worried you wouldn’t wake up, not with the beating you took.”

Mina groans. She looks around the cell and it’s more like a _dungeon_ than a humane cell. This must be _the_ maximum security confinement: no windows, a heavy metal door with just a small opening to slip food into and a small toilet space at the back. The dingy lights make her head spin. She wheezes, “ _Fuck_.”

Her companion smiles. It’s a smile that’s out of place — so full of warmth and the way her eyes curve into crescents makes Mina miss Jeongyeon. “That’s the spirit.”

“When did I get here?” Mina forces herself up this time. It takes a lot of effort and strain, making her hiss with every tiny movement. “ _How_ did I get here?”

The girl moves aside to make more space for Mina. She replies, “They threw you in here about three days ago. You were blacked out and you got high fever from all the bruising and swelling.” She makes a face. “Jesus, what happened to you?”

“They didn’t tell you, huh?”

“The guards here aren’t very talkative.”

Mina rubs the back of her neck. It aches like hell. “I tried to kill General Park Noshik but I choked and he attacked back.”

The girl blinks. “I tried to kill Choi Jungsik and wound up here.”

“Well, now isn’t that a lovely coincidence,” Mina deadpans. She looks at the girl more clearly this time. There’s an ugly gash under her right eye and she has bruises and cuts along her arms and hands. She looks to be fit, as expected of the _fida’i_ offshoots, but her cheeks are hollowing in. “I’ve heard quite a bit about that. Made international headlines.”

The girl looks down at her open palms. “Yeah, well, I choked too.”

Mina nods slowly. She asks, “Weren’t there more of you?”

The girl hesitates before she answers, “There _were_. There’s just me and five others left.”

“What happened to the ones who didn’t make it?”

“They fought back harder than I did.”

Mina mulls over that. She decides not to ask for further explanation, instead asking the girl why she was here too instead of with the remainder of her companions.

“I was just too much trouble,” the girl answers, her smile a little playful but mostly grim. “Every time the guards tried anything, I would fight back.” She points to the gash beneath her eye. “That’s how I got this.”

Mina hums in response. She thinks of Sana and Momo now. They must be worried sick about her. Nayeon must be scrambling to cover their tracks too, because she’d be dead if they found out she assisted in all of it. And Jeongyeon... _no, don’t think about Jeongyeon_.

“What’s your name?” the girl asks Mina.

It’s a habit of Mina’s to stop and think before she gives her name out to anyone. Like with when she met Jeongyeon, she considers giving either a fake name (the name she was put into prison under) or her call name.

The girl says, “It’s okay if you don’t want to give me your actual name. I just need something to address you by.”

Mina can’t get herself to go by _Hannya_ , not when she feels so defeated. “Mina.”

“Mina,” the girl says quietly. Then, “I’m Sejeong and you aren’t from here, are you, Mina?”

Mina frowns. “Is it obvious?”

“I don’t know. Your Korean is _very_ good, but I can still hear the difference in the lilt of your speech and how pronounce some words.”

“You’re very observant, Sejeong,” Mina remarks, sincerely impressed. “I’m from Japan.”

It surprises Mina when Sejeong switches to smooth Japanese, “We can speak Japanese if you want, just so they won’t be able to easily pry on us when we talk.”

“We could do that, yes,” Mina agrees, also slipping back into Japanese. It feels more comfortable to speak now. She hasn’t been away from Sana and Momo that long but there was no one else here to speak Japanese to, so this is a welcomed surprise. “Your Japanese isn’t so bad either.”

Sejeong chuckles. “So you tried to take out Park, right? I’m guessing this was some big inside job and you aren’t just _anybody_.”

“ _Shinobi_ ,” Mina answers curtly. She’s in too much physical pain to bother explaining further but she sees a flash of recognition on Sejeong’s face. She also seems to catch on to the way Mina winces when she moves.

“You know what?” Sejeong says. “I’ll leave you to rest for now. We can talk more about this later.”

Mina grumbles incoherently before she plops her head back down on the makeshift pillow. Her eyes flutter shut again in no time.

 

 

* * *

 

 

There’s no way to tell the passage of time inside their cell other than through the times when food would be brought to them. Sejeong hardly touches the food and when Mina asks her why, she says, “And let them possibly poison me? No way.”

“You need some sustenance,” Mina says gently. By now her wounds have started to heal and it doesn’t hurt to even just _breathe_ anymore. “Besides, I don’t think they’d want to poison you if they just wanted to get rid of you.”

“Still.”

Mina smiles. “If I drop dead right here and now after eating this, then congratulations, you’re right. If not, then you should eat.”

Long story short, Sejeong was wrong.

Neither of them have anything much to do either so they spend most of their time talking to each other. Sejeong is easy company and she understands where Mina is coming from. Though she still keeps some things to herself, she is more open with the other girl than she was with her cellmates. They know nothing of what goes on outside their cell so they share stories about their childhoods or their opinions on various matters. Mina teaches Sejeong some of the tricks she’d learned and Sejeong listens with enthusiasm. She learns at an impressively fast pace and they run through basic drills together.

Having a companion makes it easier for Mina to bear with how much she misses Sana and Momo. She misses the certainty they always made her feel, like anything could go wrong but they’d always find a way through it together. She realizes the full gravity of her situation just now and she especially realizes how alone in this she is. Almost all her life she’s had Sana and Momo right beside her and now all she has was herself, her useless, useless self. She knows she has to get herself out of this situation because Nayeon can’t make it too obvious either that she’s the inside man, that she’s the mole. Unless Mina figures _something_ out, there would be a lot of consequences for a lot of people.

What Sejeong can’t do is help her _not_ miss Jeongyeon. It’s become impossible not to miss her. It becomes unbearable sometimes for Mina just to think about her. She finds herself always daydreaming of that afternoon at Jeongyeon’s, mugs of hot chocolate and the flustered, rosy blush on Jeongyeon’s cheeks. Her mind plays it on loop so it’s all she will ever dream of or think of. There are times in the middle of her conversations with Sejeong that she would suddenly think of Jeongyeon and space out suddenly.

Sejeong is quick to take note of the sudden shifts in Mina’s mood, especially whenever Mina would suddenly think about Jeongyeon. Most days she makes no remark about it but now she asks, “Got something on your mind?”

“I’ve got a lot of things on my mind,” Mina replies in a murmur.

“Let me rephrase that: got _someone_ on your mind?”

Mina looks away but she catches the soft smile on Sejeong’s lips.

“You and me both,” Sejeong says wistfully.

Mina arches a brow at Sejeong. She wonders if all those times she would go quiet too it was because she was thinking of her own girl, her own Jeongyeon. Her heart softens at the thought of it but it also amuses her to know that they’re both just lovesick fools. She wrings her hands in silence for a few heartbeats before she says, “Tell me about your…”

“Somi,” Sejeong replies instantly. Her entire face lights up at the mention of her name and there is a softness, such affection, that Mina hasn’t quite seen on her before. “She’s…” She can hardly suppress her smile. She seems flustered for a moment, lost for words.

Mina laughs. “I get what you mean.”

Sejeong blushes. “So who’s yours?”

“Jeongyeon,” Mina says softly, “though I can’t exactly call her mine yet.”

“Why not?”

“We never really had much time with each other. It was...it was _something_ just budding but before we could explore it and decide anything on it, I had to do this first. I don’t even know if we’ll really stand a chance but I can’t help but want it, you know?”

Sejeong nods. “Duty comes first.”

“She said she would wait,” Mina sighs. “Wait until I got the job done then maybe we could decide on things.” She chuckles. “She said she’d take me out on a proper date if I’d let her.”

“Does she know about what’s happened?”

“I’m sure she does.”

Sejeong falls silent.

“What about yours? Does she know?”

“It’s impossible for her not to know. And knowing her, she would take down every wall and every person to get to me.”

“You sound like you’re opposed to the idea.”

Sejeong makes a face but then laughs. It’s a hollow laugh, flat and mirthless. She says, “It might just break her heart to see me like this.”

“Were you afraid?” Mina asks very softly, thinking of Jeongyeon. She knows there’s no need for them to be whispering but her voice softens. It’s almost as if she were afraid her masters and mentors would hear her admittance to fear. Or maybe she was the one who was afraid to admit her fear.

“For the first time in my life, I was,” Sejeong admits. She wraps her arms around her legs, pulling them tighter against her chest. “There were so many things going on in my head when they caught us. I was afraid they’d shoot me right then and there — it meant I would never see her again. The funny thing is, I realized I didn’t ever want to go on a day without her so I’d rather she bury me than have to live without her. I was slowly starting to accept my faith, praying to whoever is up there to just watch over her and keep her safe, when one of my friends, Nayoung, fought back. That obviously meant we’d all have to fight too.

“Three of them were shot dead and the rest of us were taken here. Like I said, I caused way too much trouble so I wound up here. I’ll admit: the isolation started driving me crazy. I couldn’t do anything else but think and think. Sometimes...there were times when I wondered why they hadn’t just pulled the trigger on me right then and there. I couldn’t stop wondering that, but I got myself out of it eventually. Now I know that I _have_ to live — if not for myself, then for her. I’m still afraid now, afraid that I won’t ever make it out of here, but she helps make me feel braver.”

Mina swallows down the lump in her throat. “I’m scared too, Sejeong. I’m scared beyond words and beyond reason.”

“It’s okay to be afraid,” Sejeong reassures her. “There’s nothing wrong with being afraid or happy or angry or _feeling_ . There’s especially nothing wrong with loving someone. It’s a little scary to surrender yourself to all of that but...we’re more than _this_.”

Mina wants to look away from Sejeong but she can’t even if she tries to.

“You’re gonna get out of here, Mina,” Sejeong tells Mina. Something about the way she says this reminds Mina of Jeongyeon, and it brings back the fire in her heart. “You’re gonna get out of here and you’re going to tell Jeongyeon everything you’ve wanted to tell her. You’re gonna go on that date she promised you and you’re going to give yourself a chance. What happens after, you can’t predict or control, but just this once just allow yourself to _surrender_.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Mina springs to her feet when she hears the sound of gunfire. She looks over to Sejeong and sees that she's awake too, just as alert and alarmed.  
  
"D'you hear what I heard?" Sejeong whispers. Mina nods. There's more gunfire in the background.  
  
Mina's mind begins to think up all the possible outcomes. Whatever was going on, their cell surely wouldn't be left unchecked. The probability of them being able to fight off an unknown number of armed people is admittedly very low. All they have are their fists and probably the strong will to live and get the fuck out of here. Still, those don't fare very well against gunpowder and ammunition.  
  
Sejeong seems to be thinking the same thing because she asks, "We'll fight, won't we?"  
  
"Of course we will," Mina answers, keeping her voice as level as possible.  
  
The gunfire gets louder, gets nearer and nearer. These were big guns, Mina can sense just from the sound. It makes her wince. She looks over to Sejeong again, but the other girl has her eyes glued to the door of their cell.  
  
Mina hears shouting right outside their door, erratic gunfire and two steady shots. It's so near to them that she can almost hear the bullets just ripping through skin, muscle and bone. Then their door starts to rattle. She can hear murmuring but she can also hear the painfully rapid pounding of her heart. They're forcing the door open now.  
  
"Ready?" Mina asks Sejeong.  
  
"As ready as I'll ever be," Sejeong murmurs back through gritted teeth.  
  
When the door swings open, both Mina and Sejeong nearly lunge forward until the first of the strangers steps in and pulls off their gas mask hurriedly. The leader of the pack is a girl, tall and lean, dressed in the uniform that the prison guards wear. Her companions are dressed identically, down to the gas masks. Mina sees Sejeong's entire body freeze and her face passes between shock to disbelief, until she sees that Sejeong's hands are shaking. Mina glances back and forth between Sejeong and the girl and when Sejeong walks towards the girl, that's when Mina knows. This is her.  
  
"You're...you're really here," Sejeong says shakily. She looks like she's holding back her tears.  
  
Somi, on the other hand, has tear-stained cheeks. She lets out a weak laugh before she cups Sejeong's face in her hands and kisses her long and hard. "You didn't think I'd just let you rot in here did you?" she quips, but her lower lip trembles.  
  
Mina feels warmth spread in her chest. She thinks of Jeongyeon immediately and her heart aches. Jeongyeon would still be waiting for her, she knows it.  
  
Somi inspects the wound under Sejeong's eyes and growls, "Did they do this? Did they touch you?"

“It’s okay.” Sejeong kisses her softly, brushing her fingers along the curve of Somi’s jaw. It seems to soothe Somi’s anger. “I’m okay.”  
  
Mina's eyes flicker to the others when another one of them pulls off her gas mask and says, "Look, as much as I enjoy happy reunions, we need to get our asses out of here pronto. You know Yubin doesn’t like being made to wait." The girl nods at Sejeong then smiles. "Long time no see."  
  
Sejeong replies, "It's good to see you too, Chaeyeon. And wait, _Yubin_ is here too?”

“She got guilt-tripped by a certain someone into joining the rescue operation,” Chaeyeon explains, looking pointedly at Somi.

Somi huffs. “I didn’t guilt-trip her. They needed someone to lead the thing and she volunteered.”

“Only to keep your ass out of trouble,” Chaeyeon retorts.

“Isn’t that why _you_ joined too?” Somi fires back.

Chaeyeon doesn’t lose her aloof stature but Mina can tell that Somi is right. “No, I just really wanted to blow some brains out.”

All the while, Mina watches the entire conversation unfold before her own two eyes. It’s awkward having to just stand around and watch this reunion happen so Mina clears her throat which catches everyone’s attention.  
  
Chaeyeon jerks her chin towards Mina's direction. The others immediately raise their guns, ready to fire. "And who are you?"  
  
"She's a friend," Sejeong interjects. Everyone turns to look at her while she has her eyes on Mina. "She's _shinobi_."

“What’s _she_ doing here then?” Somi asks, incredulous.

“We can discuss that later,” Sejeong says, accepting a gun from Chaeyeon. “For now, let’s get the hell out of here.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Mina would be lying if she said she didn’t miss the adrenaline rush she got from a fight. They have to punch, claw and shoot their way out. She thinks of Jeongyeon again but this time she doesn’t choke or falter. She fights harder. _I have to make it out of here alive. I have to see Jeongyeon again_.

When they step into the regular prison area, Mina almost gets double vision. Chaeyeon had been right when she said it would be a frenzy. The inmates have all gotten out of their cells, beating and fighting the guards that come to take control of the situation. Mina would call it a prison brawl but it’s starting to look more like a slaughterhouse in here.

“Jesus Christ,” Mina mumbles. One of the inmates charges towards her and she socks her in the face before she even has time to blink.

They come in waves — Mina gets punched and kicked and hit a few times but she storms her way through them. Chaeyeon shoots the inmate who’s got Mina in a really painful chokehold and tosses one of her pistols to Mina. “Finally,” Mina hisses, thinking of the pocket pistol she’d been given before, “a _real_ gun.”

Mina doesn’t feel tired and she doesn’t even feel the pain from the new cuts, bumps and bruises she has. She blocks out all the noise around her and focuses on getting through the mass of guards and inmates, Sejeong and her friends by her side.

When they finally get out of that moshpit gone wrong, Mina finally feels just how heavy her arms and legs feel. She looks behind her and sees two things: guards and inmates alike lying on the floor, either beaten or dead, and still more guards swarming in only to be greeted with more attacks and hostility. Mina turns to Sejeong, who’s breathing just as heavily as she is. Somi sticks by her side all throughout.

“I guess this is where we head separate ways,” Mina says to Sejeong. She checks the magazine of her gun and finds that she has no bullets left.

Sejeong hands her a fully loaded magazine, but Mina says, “No. Just one bullet. That’s all I’ll need.”

The others look strangely at Mina but Sejeong empties the rest of the bullets out, leaving only one before she hands the magazine over. “Better make that bullet count,” she says.

“I will,” Mina replies. She’d chosen to only have one bullet loaded in for a reason. It raises the stakes for her — no room for error anymore.

They don’t greet each other goodbye or tell each other they hope to see each other again. If they end up seeing each other again then it must mean they’ve gotten themselves into deep shit again. Mina gives Sejeong’s shoulder a squeeze and Sejeong says, “Remember what I told you.”

They walk down opposite halls. Mina looks over her shoulder to look at them one last time before she slowly works her way into a sprint towards where Park is.

Mina gets there the same way she got there the first time. She’s met with some surprises along the way and she neutralizes them before they can even attack her. It’s almost like playing a game to her; it reminds her of the many obstacle courses she’d had to undergo back when she was still training. She never pulls out the gun, choosing her fists and other weapons of opportunity instead. She feels exhilarated. Even having to crawl through the air shaft again doesn’t faze her.

All the while she thinks of Sana, Momo and of Jeongyeon especially. _Just wait for me a little longer._

 

 

* * *

 

 

The men's ward is even more of a mess (not that Mina is surprised). Mina sticks out like a sore thumb and it isn't long before she catches their attention. Her muscles are still burning from all the exertion but she still has enough adrenaline pumping through her veins to keep her going. It's a free for all now and Mina squares her shoulders as she walks right into the eye of the storm.  
  
Mina's been trained in fighting multiple attackers at once, but that was at most five at a time, not hundreds at a time. For every person she knocked out there came three more. She has to be smart about how she fights too; these men are bigger than her and stronger but she's lighter on her feet, so she knows she should go for straightforward attacks and counter attacks rather than try anything too fancy or risky. No room for error, not when she still had to get out of here alive and preferably in one piece.  
  
She punches, kicks, claws, hits, stabs, slashes and curses her way through the thralls of prisoners she has to get through before she can get to Park. One nearly stabs her in the gut with a make-shift blade but she disarms it from him and makes four quick and fluid slashes before moving forward. Mina takes care not to use the gun or accidentally shoot anyone, using the butt of it instead as a blunt weapon.  
  
Her saving grace comes in the form of a flock of guards armed with batons and shields. That diverts the inmates' attention from Mina and they charge forward, yells and roars erupting. Mina manages to slink and duck her way through the thick hoard of inmates and guards brawling it out now.  
  
Mina feels her throat constricting when she walks down that familiar hall, down to where she will inevitably find Park. The inmates are all running amok and she manages to dodge a few of them, neutralizing a few along the way.  A few more run past her, double tracking when they see the gun in her hands, but she heeds them no attention.  
  
She wastes no time in looking for Park, marching forward to his cell. Mina groans in frustration when she sees that his cell is empty. Just then, a guard (he looks young, not yet a seasoned veteran judging from the panic written all over his face) enter and with trembling hands he cocks his gun at her. "S-stand down!"  
  
Mina knows he doesn't have it in him to actually shoot her. She slaps Park's empty cell shut and strides towards the guard. He stammers a few more warning before she reaches out and disarms him of his gun. "Park," she growls. "Where is he?"  
  
"I-I'm not allowed to s-say where he—"  
  
Mina points his gun straight down at his groin, cocks a brow.  
  
The young man makes a whimpering sound. "They evacuated him!" he finally spills, bullets of sweat running down the sides of his face. "When the a-alarms went off, they plucked him out of h-here. He's too valuable an a—"  
  
Mina waves a hand dismissively. "I know that but what I need to know is where they'll be passing. Which gate?"  
  
"The back gate," the guard gulps. "The main gate's been...uh, compromised. Hostiles."  
  
Mina nods in understanding. She hands the guard back his gun, taking him aback, but not without knocking him out after. She isn't going to let him off the hook that easily.  
  
There's only one path that leads out into the back entrance, the one they reserve for high profile prisoners. She stops for a moment to make sure she's going down the right way, wracking her mind for memory of the map she'd been given. Once she's a hundred percent sure, she wastes no time to get to Park before they successfully whisk him out of here.

Mina is glad there’s nothing and no one standing in her way now because she really can’t afford to lose time fending off any obstacles or attackers. She’s on a drop dead sprint to get to Park and to finally put an end to this all. When she gets out — and it’s almost as chaotic as it was inside — she sees spots a small group of guards ushering Park, who’s handcuffed (thank God), into a bulletproof car. Park spots her and she sees his entire face light up in recognition and fear. She runs faster towards him.

Her legs are burning and her feet ache but she thinks of Jeongyeon and it renews her strength, pushing her further and faster.

The other guards are preoccupied with other inmates. Mina leaves that to them. One of the guards that is ushering Park tries to shoot at her but she knocks his gun right out of his hands and punches him right in his face, knocking him backwards. The other guards spring into action but Mina is more than ready to take them on, though she keeps a safe distance from their guns. She’d just fought her way through almost the entire population of the supermax — a handful of guards, regardless of whether or not they are armed, is _nothing_ now.

At the back of her mind is still Jeongyeon, always, always, always. Her words start to reverberate more intensely now in Mina’s ears: _But after that...can't we give it a shot?_ Her mind replays that over and over, Jeongyeon’s voice getting louder in her head with every punch she throws and with every blow they land on her. _I have to get back to her_.

Mina finally takes down the last of the guards.

Park stumbles backwards, falling flat on his back. Unlike before, he is silent now. Silent but trembling. He doesn’t beg her for mercy because she can tell he knows this time he won’t make it out alive. He knows now is when he dies.

Mina stands above him, gun pointed at his head, and she feels like herself again. She feels _whole_ again, with a renewed purpose. She is Mina but she is also _Hannya_ , the executioner. She watches as Park squeezes his eyes shut, his entire body shaking and his shirt soaking through with sweat. Mina herself feels a calm wash over her and she pulls the trigger. The sound of the gunshot rings in her ears and for a moment all she can see is red.

She doesn’t really know what she expected to feel after finally shooting Park. Relieved? Yes, she felt a little relieved. It’s finally done with. Proud? Not exactly. Tired? Definitely. Mina brushes all of that aside for a moment when the men inside the bulletproof car step out, guns ready.  She looks up too late though because one of them’s already shot his gun and the bullet rips right through her shoulder, the same spot she’d been shot just months ago.

Mina blinks. She reaches up to touch the spot where she’d been shot and the blood stains her fingertips. She’s still in a daze when the second gunshot goes off and she stumbles backwards. It’s a chest shot, almost too close to her heart.

_Move, Mina_ , she urges herself in her head. _What are you doing? Fight back or run! Don’t just stand there!_

She almost puts up her gun but she remembers there had only been one bullet and she’s already used it on Park. She also knows trying to fight back would be useless; she’s already been shot twice and she had nothing that could go against guns. The only option is to run.

Mina turns around weakly, unable to get her legs to run so she takes small and wobbly steps instead. Her mind feels light again. It’s like an out of body experience — it feels like she’s ghosted out of her physical body, watching the blood soak her clothes, watching her try to walk away but not without wincing with every step. She’s not even five feet away when Mina falls to her knees; her ears are ringing now and her leg bleeds out on the ground. Still, she forces herself up. It hurts and she almost falls on her face, but she tells herself she has to get up, she has to walk, she has to see Jeongyeon again.

_Can’t we give it a shot?_

Mina’s breathing is labored now and her vision gets hazier by the second. _Keep walking,_ she wills herself. _Keep walking, don’t falter, don’t fall_ . Each step becomes more and more painful to take but she tries to find the will and strength to carry on. _Please, don’t give up now. Keep going, you can, you can. You_ must.

Another loud bang, the sound of a gun firing. Mina feels a dull throbbing in her chest before she finally stumbles and falls.

_Get up, damn it! Get up!_

Mina looks up at the sky where the stars are slowly fading as the sun is ready to rise. It’s a sight to behold, how the dark of the night slowly fading to yellows and then blues.

_Goddamn it, get up! You still have to see her, you have to_ — _you have to tell her_ —

Mina’s heart aches and twists. Jeongyeon, oh Jeongyeon. She promised to take her out on a proper date. She promised her a future she could never accept or ever afford. She left her with promises and possibilities. Jeongyeon and her warmth and softness…

_Can’t we give it a shot?_

Mina closes her eyes and surrenders completely.

**Author's Note:**

> here's looking at you, 2017.


End file.
